A Summoning: The Scarlet Pimpernel
by Alyx Bradford
Summary: Percy, Marguerite, and the rest of Scarlet Pimpernel fame all recieve mysterious notes, summoning them to a place they've never heard of, to attend a secret Council.
1. Marguerite

**A Summoning: The Scarlet Pimpernel**

_15 November 1792__, two-thirty in the afternoon_

_Blakeney Manor_

Marguerite Blakeney turned the letter over a few times, examining it.  The parchment, starched and heavy, was of a kind she had not seen before, as was the odd seal – tricolour wax, with the impressions of a white star, a silver moon, and a gold sun all entwined.  Surely it was meant for Percy; any message from the League would be sent to him, not her, and her only personal correspondences were with Louise and Suzanne.

And yet James had put the letter in her hand, and sure enough, it was her name so neatly scripted on the front.  Even that confused her, though, and she flipped the letter over to peruse it again.

_Lady Marguerite Blakeney_

_Daughter of Flame_

Marguerite had no idea what that meant, and yet she _did_ know, somewhere deep in the recesses of her soul.  Her mind tried to dredge up the reference, but it was like trying to recall a fragment of a dream once the sun has risen: insubstantial, unexplained, but still maddeningly there.

"Marguerite!  Marguerite!"  Suzanne de Tourney (soon to be Ffoulkes) could be heard before seen, though when she burst through the doorway to Marguerite's room, a floof of pink ruffles, it was certainly a spectacle.  "Marguerite, I—oh!  You've got one, too!"  Suzanne drew a folded bit of paper from within her lacy sleeve.

"Have you read yours yet?" Marguerite asked, walking over to her friend.

"No, I was too afraid.  I thought I might have received it by mistake."

"As did I."  Marguerite touched Suzanne's missive lightly, noting the wax seal, identical to the one on her own letter.

"Let's open them together!"  Suzanne giggled, still so much the schoolgirl Marguerite had met years earlier.  "Perhaps the boys are funning us!"

Marguerite smiled wryly, but couldn't help think that there was more to this than a boyish prank, especially when she noticed that Suzanne's letter was addressed to:

_Mlle Suzanne de Tourney_

_Companion_

Marguerite slid her finger under the seal and split the letter open.  Before she could unfold it, she felt a furry brush against her calf, and realized one of the kittens had crawled beneath her skirt again.  Opening parchment, she noted that it was in the same flowing script as on the front.

"'Lady Marguerite Blakeney,'" she read aloud.  "And I presume yours says 'Suzanne de Tourney' – 'Your presence is requested at the three-hundred-forty-seventh Council of Principals, to be held on the Fourth of September, YED 26, at the Castle Celestia in Aranothyium.  The Portals have been opened, and your Summons will occur precisely at the eleventh hour of the morning on Friday, the 16th of November, Greenwich time.  It is imperative that you attend.  Further matters will be elucidated at the Council.  Formally, Lady Arawyn of Celestia.'"

Suzanne tittered nervously.  "Well, what in heavens does that – yeeah!"  She jumped up in the air suddenly.

"It's just Arabelle or Aurélie, Suzanne, they seem to have developed an affection for ankles.  But what do you make of this letter?"

"I haven't the slightest…" Suzanne replied, tucking in back into her sleeve, then reaching down to pick up a tiny calico kitten.  _Aurélie,_ Marguerite thought, bemused.  "Celestia… is that in Prussia?"

"I don't think so, Suzanne… besides, that's only the castle's name… Aranothyium…"  Marguerite twisted the unfamiliar word around her tongue with surprising ease.

"Hmm, well, it sounds quite foreign to me," the blonde girl remarked, stroking Aurélie between the ears.  "Maybe it's in the east, the Ottoman Empire or India or some such.  Or perhaps even in America.  But then how are we supposed to get there by tomorrow morning?"  Marguerite shrugged.  Suzanne's dainty lips formed a pout.  "Well, I still think the boys are playing a joke on us, and it isn't at all nice of them.  What else could it be?"

Marguerite looked at the strange, broken seal again.  "What else, indeed?"

~~*~~


	2. Percy

_15 November 1792__, _five o'clock___ in the evening_

_the__ home of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes_

"It's a code of some sort.  Someone's trying to tell us something."

"Lud, fellow, I think that much is obvious," Percy snorted in Tony's general direction.  "Otherwise we wouldn't have received these missives, would we?"

"Do you think… it's a cry for help?  From someone in Paris, perhaps?"  Andrew was giving the broken seal an inquisitive stare, holding it up to the light as though he expected that to reveal anything.

"It sounds urgent… 'imperative that you attend'… but what the devil is this Council business about?"  Frustrated, Percy tossed his letter down on the table, atop the forgotten playing cards.  It lay there, half open, with the words

_Sir Percival Blakeney, Bart._

_The Rogue Son_

left staring up at him.  Percy furrowed his brow and glared at the words, offending in their obscurity.  Tony and Andrew's letters had read simply "_Companion_" below their names, and no one could make sense of the epithet assigned to Percy.

No one could make sense of anything, that was the simple truth of the matter.

"Maybe it's a warning…" Tony muttered, stroking his chin as he paced around the room.

Percy gave him a withering look.  "Of what, then?"

"Err…"

Andrew had opened his letter and was re-reading the contents.  "Isn't Celestia somewhere in Prussia?"  Tony smacked him upside the head in an off-handed manner.  "Oww…"

Percy drummed his fingers on the card table, still giving a death-look at his letter.  The three men remained in silence, all looking at their respective parchments; Percy glaring from a distance, Andrew holding it absurdly near to his eyes, and Tony perusing it as casually as though it were a dinner invitation.  The stillness broke when the door to the library banged open and a pink silken figure appeared.

"Suzanne!" Andrew exclaimed, as he and Percy leapt up from their seats.  "What are you doing here?"

"You've got them too!" she shrilled, ignoring the question and pointing a finger at the letter in his hands.  "All of you!"

Percy started.  "Wait… you mean…"

"I received one earlier today.  So did Marguerite."  To prove herself, Suzanne brandished a folded paper, which Andrew took from her, looking at the seal.

Tony and Percy exchanged looks.  "I'll warrant Armand and Louise did as well," Percy declared.

"Edward?  Thomas?  The other members of the League?" Tony asked.

"I'll make inquiries," Andrew offered.

"You won't have time," Percy said, snatching his letter up from the table.  "By eleven tomorrow morning?  Unless we want to spend the night racing about the countryside tracking all our members down…"

"This is madness…" muttered Andrew.

"No… this is a Summons…" Percy said, in a voice not quite his own, then shook his head as though waking from a dream.

Tony, Andrew, and Suzanne blinked at him.

"Err… Percy, we've got something going on here.  This is no time for you to go spooky on us."

"I… didn't mean to.  I don't know what that was."  He looked at the front of his letter again, then dashed to the side of the room to grab his coat from the stand.  "I've got to go to Marguerite."

"And you've got to go home," Andrew said to Suzanne.  "How did you get here, anyway?"

"Coerced the coachman to stop here before taking me to Mama's.  Oh, don't fuss, I left Marguerite's early so I would have time…"

"Deuce take it, girl, you're going to be the death of me."

Percy had long since stopped listening, and was on his way out the door.  "Percy, wait!" Tony yelled, chasing him down the hallway.

He rounded neatly to face his cousin.  "My dear fellow, this is a mystery that needs solving.  I'm going home to my clever wife to see what she's managed to figure out in the time since Suzanne left her."  He shook the letter emphatically.  "I imagine I'll be seeing you tomorrow one way or the other – either in this Aranothyium place… or I'll meet you at the club at three for a race.  Mademoiselle."  He executed a smart bow to Suzanne before turning back around and charging out the door, calling for someone to bring him Sultan.

~~*~~


	3. The Blakeneys

_15 November 1792, __six o'clock__ in the evening_

_Blakeney Manor_

Marguerite had been sitting in the library, ensconced in a chair next to the fire, ever since Suzanne had left her, with only the enigmatic letter and a pot of hot chocolate for company.  Outside, the sun had set, and she had not bothered to get up and light candles, and had given the servants instructions not to bother her, so when Percy came in, only the flickering of the fire illuminated the room.  She stood up then, with the letter in her left hand.  "You?" she inquired.

Percy strode across the room and plucked it from her fingers, glanced over it quickly, and pulled his own out of his pocket.  "I, as well."  He deposited that, too, into her grasp.

"What do you make of it, Percy?" she asked, looking up at him.

"I do not know, madame," he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead.  "But I mean to find out."

He moved over to light one of the oil lamps.  "But how?"

"I haven't quite worked that part out yet."  He grinned over at her.  "But we're both intelligent individuals.  Something will come to us."

Marguerite compared the two notes, identical but for the addressee.  "'The Rogue Son'?"

He quirked an eyebrow at her.  "'Daughter of Flame', m'dear?"

Shaking her head, "I don't know, but it…"

"Seems familiar, don't it?"

She pressed a hand to her temple.  "It does… and yet I don't know why… and it's been giving me a headache all day."

Percy flopped down into the armchair she had vacated, long limbs sprawling.  "Where did it come from?"

"James only said that a cloaked messenger had given it to him."

He nodded vaguely.  "Andrew's butler said the same thing…"

"Andrew received one as well?"

"And Tony, and Suzanne.  I don't suppose your brother popped in this evening, did he?"  She shook her head.  "Pity.  I'd like to know if he and Louise are wrapped up in this  as well."  He tugged his cravatte open a bit, and then sighed.  "A mystery, Margot…"

She stepped over and settled herself on his lap, and he looped his arms around her.  "You don't suppose… I mean, I don't believe Chauvelin could have anything to do with it, could he?"

Percy took the letters from her.  "If we had been told how to get where we are going, or even _where_ the demmed place is, I might suspect him.  But we can't very well walk into a trap if we're not going anywhere, can we?"

"What do you suppose will happen at eleven tomorrow, then?"

"I simply don't know, m'dear.  But I propose we be ready for it."

Marguerite let her head drop onto her husband's shoulder, and he began absent-mindedly toying with one of her red-gold ringlets.  "Margot…" he said after a few moments passed.

"Hm?"

"That dress Suzanne was wearing today looked awfully familiar."

Marguerite grinned to herself.  "It ought to have.  It was mine before she altered it."

"You gave it to her, then?"

"Yes."

"Good.  Pink looks ever so much better on her.  On you, it's just… inexplicable."

"Why do you think I've switched to blue and gold, my darling?"

"Infinitely better."

Marguerite laughed, and Percy smiled.  The events of the previous month had been trying, but all worth it, just to hear her laughter and feel her warmth once again.  To have his Margot back at last… any trial was worth that.

"Percy?"

"Margot?"

"Do you get the feeling that this is the beginning of a great adventure?"

He gave a mock-sigh.  "I hope not, m'dear.  I haven't yet recovered from the last one."

She laughed again.  "Oh, but Percy!"

"Yes, yes, darling, I have that same feeling.  Mysterious letters, sent to the League and their loves, bearing enigmatic and symbolic seals… it has all the markings of the start of something tremendous."

~~*~~

_[Authoress's Note:_

_[For further reading, please see Christine Persephone's **The Summons**._

_[Disclaimer:  I do not own the Blakeneys or anyone else in this story.  I believe they quite own themselves._

_[And really, various film- and musical-producers will insist on dressing Marguerite in pink.  I can not ken why.  Pink with that hair just can not work properly]_


End file.
